Abstract The McDonald’s Corporation is one of the most successful global restaurant chains around the world. They have used effective management and global expansion strategies to enter new markets and gain a share of the foreign fast food market. This report presents how McDonald’s has achieved this enormous success, its best practices in the global food industry, international growth trends and challenges, and effect on its operating income and number of increasing restaurants across the globe from their expansion in foreign countries. Overall, the case provides a discussion of how McDonald’s enters into a foreign market and what strategies it uses in order to be a dominant leader in the fast food industry at low cost. This case focuses on McDonald’s international success, and strategies and benefits that it got from the franchise business. Objectives of the Study The primary objective of the research will be to understand various global business strategies adopted by McDonald. The other objectives are: 1. To find how these strategies are influenced by the external environment. 2. To find out the growth pace of McDonald around the world. 3. To study the advantages of Franchise business and its impact on McDonald. Research Methodology The report is based on exploratory research based on secondary data such as reviewing available literature and/or data. Data Sources Secondary Sources Research Papers and Case Studies: HBR and Other University – Management Institute Research & Case Journals. Articles from Business Magazines: Bloomberg, The Economist, Fortune & Forbes Publications by Global Consulting Firms: Mc Kinsey Quarterly & Other MCK, and O&M Publications International Business References: The McGraw – Hill’s International Business Introduction Although there has been considerable examination of the perceived global success of McDonald, I have included in my report, apart from the global strategies McDonald has used in entering new markets and shutting down the rival’s business, how it gained advantage by selling franchise. Knowing the external environment is crucial for the success/downfall of any business corps, how McDonald is impacted due to the several environmental factors across globe. The report throws light on the growth pace of the company right from its birth. It will benefit any reader in understanding McDonald’s success. Through this report, the operating profit of McDonald is highlighted in terms of its franchise business and own restaurants. It also shows the number of increasing restaurants across the continents. The next section incorporates a review of the literature and presents the research problem. Then, the methodology used to conduct the study and the findings are explained. Lastly, the theoretical and practical ramifications of this study are discussed followed by conclusion. Literature Review Internationalization theory, which is the prominent theory in international business regarding how firms expand overseas, is a behavioral theory that suggests that firms minimize the uncertainty associated with going abroad by doing so only gradually, starting with modes of entry that involve little commitment, such as exporting, and only increasing their involvement in those markets where they have found success (Johansen & Vahlne, 1977 and 1990). This view of international expansion is not inconsistent with the options value approach, where firms also commit resources only gradually and thus have occasion to update their evaluation of different opportunities. Internationalization theory, however, with its focus on risk aversion, also suggests that firms expand abroad only once they have exhausted opportunities within their home market, and that they then expand first in markets that are “familiar” to them, namely markets similar culturally or in close geographic proximity to those they are already in, and that they exhaust opportunities in each market before moving into new ones. Economic theory suggests instead that the firm will continuously pursue best opportunities across all markets. In 1983, Theodore Levitt published a provocative Harvard Business Review article entitled “The Globalization of Markets”, in which he stated that a new global market, based on uniform products and services, had emerged. He asserted that large scale companies have stopped emphasizing on the customization of their offers to providing globally standardized products that are advanced, functional, reliable and low priced. He argued that informed customers were heading toward a “convergence of tastes”; thus corporations should exploit the “economics of simplicity” and he maintained that the future belonged to global corporations that did not cater to local differences in taste but, instead, adopted strategies that „operated as if the entire world (or major regions of it) were a single entity; such an organization sells the same things in the same way everywhere”.